Maryland continues push to NCAA tourney
Terps have won four straight heading into matchup vs. Ohio State
COLLEGE PARK — Maryland women’s basketball’s wide advantage over Rutgers allowed coach Brenda Frese to empty her bench. First came Emily Fisher, a freshman who’s contributed in spurts but hasn’t cracked the rotation.
Next was Hawa Doumbouya. The 6-foot-7 center has sparingly seen the court — she’s played just 39 minutes all season. So when Frese gestured for Doumbouya to leave her seat and enter the game, it drew one of the largest cheers of the night. Only her first points, a spin move from the post into a layup, created a louder one.
The score was part of a second quarter in which Maryland held Rutgers to just four points and pulled away for good. In a winding season that hasn’t always gone how Maryland hoped, Wednesday night’s imposing 81-62 victory marked the latest point of a run that Frese hopes slingshots the Terps into the NCAA Tournament.
They know they’re squarely on the bubble. Four consecutive wins could be enough to get them on the right side of it.
“It’s a perfect time to be peaking,” Frese said.
Maryland fell victim to a difficult stretch of its schedule. Over a two-week span, the Terps dropped back-to-back road contests, including a 36-point drubbing from Penn State, then returned to College Park and lost two more against top-10 opponents. Caitlin Clark and then-No. 3 Iowa narrowly escaped with a win, and then-No. 10 Indiana won by 14.
It dropped them to 4-7 in conference. But over the past two weeks, Maryland beat the Scarlet Knights, Illinois and found revenge against the Nittany Lions.
And with another victory Wednesday, the Terps have a winning record in Big Ten play.
“Their practices have improved,” Frese said. “They’re coaching themselves now. They’re coming in, putting their head down and wanting to compete and work, and they’re starting to see the results.”
The solution has, in large part, come from Jakia Brown-Turner.
She transferred to Maryland from NC State last summer, and Frese hoped she’d have an instant impact as a scorer to fill the void left by WNBA draft pick Diamond Miller. But Brown-Turner was slow to adjust to her new team — she averaged just 9.6 points through her first 14 games.
But in the 10 since, BrownTurner has averaged 19.7 points. The Oxon Hill native and Bishop McNamara grad recorded a season-high 32 in the Terps’ drubbing of Penn State on Sunday.
The guard wasn’t relied on to provide the scoring in Wednesday’s 19-point win, but her emergence has taken the scoring load off Shyanne Sellers, who was tasked with handling playmaking and scoring duties during Maryland’s early season struggles.
“She can shoot, she can drive off balance, she has a nice fadeaway,” Sellers said. “Jakia’s just a tough matchup. She can run the three, the four, whatever you need.”
Sellers scored 20 or more points five times in her first 14 games this year. She’s done that just twice over her past 10. She’s instead settled into her point guard duties, but can still provide the offensive spark when needed.
Sellers’s 21 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists all led the team Wednesday.
The transfer of scoring reliance has fostered a more cohesive starting unit. Guard Bri McDaniel has broken out as a sophomore and the secondary ball handler. Brinae Alexander has made 61 3-pointers this season — no other Terp has even attempted that many. Faith Masonius was inserted into the starting lineup in the first of the past four wins. Opponents have scored a paltry 59 points per game since the lineup change.
“It just makes us a really tough team,” Sellers said. “Jakia started to find her groove halfway through the season. That’s big for us, adding another scorer. It just opens up the floor for everybody else.”
Lavender Briggs, typically the Terps’ first player off the bench, exited Wednesday’s game with a knee injury in the second quarter and did not return. She’ll have an MRI on Thursday, Frese said.
A losing record in January gave way into a nearly perfect February. The month closes with a few more chances to solidify Maryland’s place in the postseason with No. 2 Ohio State and the No. 14 Hoosiers looming.
Until those opportunities, Frese expects the past two weeks have done enough.
“The schedule in the Big Ten is brutal,” Frese said. “We’re all living through it. I love where we’re at. I always say there’s winning and there’s lessons, and we’ve learned a lot of lessons from some of those earlier losses.”